Marathon preorders cause Destiny 2 to download for Steam users

Bungie finally announced a release date (again) this week for its troubled extraction shooter Marathon, and with it, opened up preorders. But some Windows PC players who tried to preorder the game via Steam found themselves downloading another Bungie shooter with a bunch of neon colors and sci-fi weapons.

“We’ve resolved an issue where Destiny 2 would begin installing after pre-ordering Marathon on Steam,” Bungie wrote on X. “We have also resolved an issue where Collector’s Edition owners would receive an error when attempting to activate their game code on Steam.”

Destiny 2 requires 170 GB of storage space on Steam, but it is a free-to-play game, so it’s not like users got hit with hidden charges. Still, that didn’t stop the internet from having some fun.

“How can someone pre order a free game like marathon?” one X user joked. “You guys aren’t going to try and sell marathon are you?” Another user posted an edited image of Bungie’s announcement, cropped in a manner so the text read, “We’ve resolved an issue where Destiny 2 would begin installing.” Others likened the incident to Onion headlines or Simpsons memes.

Marathon preorders also caused an issue in Destiny 2 itself. Destiny 2 players who preordered Marathon were supposed to receive themed cosmetics for their ship, Ghost, and Sparrow, but those items weren’t immediately showing up. By Monday evening, Bungie said in a post on X that it had addressed the issue, and those rewards should now appear for players.

Though these errors are ultimately harmless, it’s the latest string of stumbles in, ahem, a marathon of missteps for the forthcoming shooter. Preview footage from early 2025 led to mixed reception, and drew comparisons to the pilloried live-service shooter Concord, also under the Sony umbrella. Along the way, there were accusations of plagiarism. Bungie initially pegged Marathon for a Sept. 23, 2025, release date, but in June of that year delayed it indefinitely. Two months later, studio head Pete Parsons stepped down. Marathon reemerged again in the fall for a series of closed technical tests, again in December 2025 with a narrowed release window (March 2026), and again this week with a firm release date.

Marathon is out March 5 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. As of this writing, Marathon preorders are currently the 11th-bestselling item on Steam.